What’s inside: A review of Brick Shakespeare: a ridiculous yet endearing set of stories from Shakespeare in “graphic novel” style with Lego minifigures as the characters.
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What is Brick Shakespeare?
We own a set of Brick Shakespeare’s Comedies and Tragedies by McCann, Sweeney, & Thomas. These are 2 matching books in a hardcover gift set. One is “The Tragedies” and one is “The Comedies.” And they each have a retelling of four of Shakespeare’s finest plays, including Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, and more.
We love these books for many reasons, besides the fact that they are a bit silly.
I mean, c’mon.
Re-enacting Shakespeare using minifigures?
Re-enactment and Narration
Ok. We’ve done that. I confess.
Lego is actually a very good medium for abstract narrations when reading living books.
Background:
Normal narration is a “telling back” of a story after hearing it read once. Sometimes, to keep learning fresh, homeschooling moms will ask for a different kind of “telling back” that can be very creative. To draw a picture, for instance. Or to build a clay model or a diarama. Or to use stuffed animals or Lego minifigures in a retelling of the story.
Narration itself is a wonderful tool for learning.
But that’s not what we are here to talk about.
Why we own a Brick Shakespeare
Needless to say, since my guys adored Legos and minifigures, they were known to recreate stories with Lego. They set up a lovely Moses “Crossing the Red Sea” scene once.
When I saw a copy of Brick Shakespeare’s Comedies & Tragedies, I knew we needed one.
5 Things To Love about Brick Shakespeare
Here’s what we love about it:
- It has Lego and Shakespeare. Two favorite things together. I’m not saying it’s a good as peanut butter and chocolate… you’ll have to decide.
- It includes the most memorable 4 plays in each category: Comedies & Tragedies. In my Shakespeare Tragedies Bookmark Bundle, I include 5 tragedies – the same 4 that are here, as well as King Lear. But I can see if you only could pick 4, you’d have to drop Lear. I selected the same 4 Comedies for the Comedies Bundle as they did for their book.
- The language is pure Shakespeare. Yes, they edit and cut a lot out, but when characters speak, they use Shakespearean English. That’s the best way to make a simpler version of Shakespeare as an introduction to young learners. Sometimes that language can be difficult. But exposure to it at an early age helps later on when they read the full plays. It becomes less like a foreign language and more like something they are familiar with.
- The little minifigures have their faces changed to show emotion. For instance, when Juliet sees dead Romeo, she has a look or shock and horror. Or Lady MacBeth shows anger and displeasure when needed. It’s funny.
- The books keep to the plays’ structure. They break it up by Acts and Scenes. And they have a little picture of who’s who at the beginning of the book. This is actually important because usually, the plays have the same thing written at the beginning, but you still can’t remember who is who in the larger casts. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of everybody. Shakespeare does write rich and complex plays! The books also color code families when it matters, like in Romeo & Juliet – similar to “Gnomeo & Juliet.”
3 Things I don’t Enjoy about Brick Shakespeare
I thought it only fair to mention the things I don’t like about these books. My sons will disagree with me on these points, but they aren’t in control of the keyboard.
- It’s in graphic novel style. I can’t stand that. I indulge my kids with this because some librarian somewhere said, “Any reading is good reading.” And my hubby grew up reading comic books, so is partial to the genre.
Yet I think Charlotte Mason would agree with me. It’s like saying “Any eating is good eating.” While you’re talking about the junk they feed people sometimes and call it food. (I’m thinking of hospital ice cream.)
Well, yes, if you are starving, any food is better than no food. But are you going to thrive on jello?
Children need nourishment. The feast should be set with high quality living books. No twaddle.
So is this twaddle? Your house may differ, but apparently, this worked for us. I wouldn’t give this to them INSTEAD of the real thing. But I gave this to them when they were just being introduced to Shakespeare, and it was a good way to acquire familiarity with the stories.
Shakespeare does usually need some way of gaining the familiarity with the language and plots. Nobody wants to feel like they can’t understand something.
Perhaps a better way to gain this familiarity is with Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare. They use the language but weave the story into a narrative that is very accessible by most people.
But my guys preferred Lego and Brick Shakespeare.
Wait, didn’t you say 3 things?
Well, I couldn’t really come up with 3 things that I didn’t like about these books except for:
- Graphic Novel style.
- Written like a graphic novel.
- Did I mention it is like a comic book?
Summary
All in all, we enjoyed this one! It’s a recommend as a read aloud family book for older kids who are ready to study Shakespeare.
However, A Warning: The tragedies are true to the story – people die. Violently. When Mercutio is stabbed to death by Tybalt in a duel, they show Tybalt’s sword touching Mercutio’s chest, then the next frame has Mercutio with a little 1×1 transparent red round tile attached to his chest as he lies on the ground dying.
Use your judgment on what works for your family.
